


How Our Story Ends

by NewerConstellations



Series: Starry-Eyed: One Shots and Novellas by NewerConstellations [4]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Authorial indulgence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff and Smut, Happily Ever After, Intimacy, My ideal version of their HEA, No Spoilers, Post-Canon, Post-Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Resolution, SUBSCRIBE FOR PERIODIC UPDATES, WHAT I WANT TO HAPPEN AFTER TRoS, What I want for my space babies, approximately 150 percent more nipple sucking than canon, nonlinear, smut and healing it's a thing, together
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-16
Updated: 2020-01-24
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:54:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21823243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NewerConstellations/pseuds/NewerConstellations
Summary: ************************************SUBSCRIBE FOR PERIODIC UPDATESThey saved the galaxy.  Now they save each other.Nearly two years after the war, Palpatine and the forces of darkness have been defeated. A battered galaxy still doesn't know what to think of Ben Solo and most either fear or loathe him.But Rey knows.  She knows the heart of the man she saved, her dyad in the Force.  She chooses Ben.They travel the galaxy learning to let go of the past and building a future together, healing and filling in each other's cracks with light, completing each other in ways they couldn't have predicted.Together they have hope._______Purely indulgent post-The Rise of Skywalker vignettes begun before the film was released to give them the ending that I wanted– happiness and peace.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Series: Starry-Eyed: One Shots and Novellas by NewerConstellations [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1921297
Comments: 100
Kudos: 274





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I decided to write my own self-indulgent version of a Reylo HEA as a safe place to put all my hopes and dreams for these two beloved characters before TRoS came out. They deserved better.
> 
> Thanks to all of you for a wonderful two years of celebrating Reylo together! 
> 
> <3

______

**_PROLOGUE._ **

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away . . . 

There was a quiet and lonely boy who believed in heroes.

His mother was a hero. Born in pain and despair, a princess from a dead world, she lost every family member she had known– two mothers, a father, a husband, brother and son– and still, she was never tempted to the darkside. A beacon of hope, the leader of the Resistance, a rebel until the very end. She died a legend.

His uncle was a hero. A farm boy from nowhere who saved the galaxy time and again, resisting vengeance to choose a path of light. He redeemed the unredeemable, forgave the unforgivable, and inspired generations before sacrificing himself for the light. He died a legend.

His father was a hero. An orphan with no name who joined a movement to save his friends. A scoundrel with a deep heart who choose love over selfishness, good over riches. His bravery was known across the stars and he was mourned by many. He died a legend.

The lonely boy was raised to believe in heroes. He was tucked into bed with a kiss and stories of the Rebellion and the Empire, good defeating evil. 

So what did it mean that he was so filled with darkness? 

That the heroes he loved feared him?

_ How evil must he be, if the woman who always resisted gave up on him? _

_ If the man who forgave Vader, woke him with a lit blade? _

_ If a man who risked everything for his friends, abandoned him? _

So the boy gave up on heroes, because they had given up on him. 

He became what they thought he was. What the dark whispers in his head told him he was all along.

He gave himself a new name, a new face behind a mask. The memories of the light made him feel even darker inside, so he cut out any pieces of himself that could hurt. When he faced the father who reminded him of the pain, whose heart he carried in his own chest, he cut that out, too. 

As he dropped the body down the chasm, it felt like he was also falling. Further away from who he was, further into darkness, where no light could ever find or touch him again. But instead of quieting, the screaming in his chest wouldn’t stop. It ripped him in two. Darkness couldn’t fill this emptiness, darkness was an absence of light. It could not give or fill. It could not heal.

Only light can heal. 

The boy gave up on heroes, but one did not give up on him.

A flicker in the darkness, a wild spark of light found him. Feral and powerful. A soul who saw him for all he was– the aching and the pain, the loneliness and the power– and didn’t turn away or fear him. She met him with her own fierce howl in response.

Together, they were balanced. Together they were complete. They defeated an ancient evil greater than that which he carried inside, and he chose the path of light for many reasons, but above all to save her. The screaming in his chest stopped when her light filled the spaces. His cracks were sewn together again into something new, not the same but even stronger, and he could breathe again staring up into her eyes.

The boy has only has one hero now.

Her.

_________

After almost two years, the nightmares have mostly receded. Just like the tides of the wide, azure ocean a few klicks away from the cabin where they take their walks after dinner.

On some nights, though, the flames will remind him.

Ben turns his back on the fireplace and stretches out on instinct for her. It’s selfish, he knows. Rey sleeps better curled up on her side of the bed since he’s a furnace of heat. The habit of years sleeping alone is a powerful one for her, still. Yet she never complains when he drags her back into him, even when he stirs her awake.

Arm wrapped around her middle, she slides perfectly into the space against his chest. She resettles, soft and pliant, and her breath quickly returns to the slow, melodic rhythm of sleep.

Ben exhales and relaxes again.

They’ve been on this planet for nearly four months, a few weeks’ longer than they should. He knows it’s time to relocate, but they’ve been so peaceful here. Something about the ocean tides and the two moons that cross paths over the waters each night as they collect shells and stones on the purple sand. He doesn’t want to give it up yet.

He’s had a certain affinity for saltwater after dueling with her on the wreckage, in the time he thinks of as _ Before.  _ The tides surged and roiled dangerously around them, but he could see only her– furious beauty and powerful light. To be honest, Rey drenched in white was quite distracting. He’d teased her about it several times, careful to stop when Rey rolled her eyes and punched his arm to tell him it was enough. Ben didn’t need to dip into their bond to know that she found the attention flattering but embarrassing, he could tell by the rosiness of her cheeks.

Oh, was he going to enjoy finding new ways to make her blush.

“Why are you awake?” Her voice was rough with sleep. He loved her voice. The depth was a contrast to her willowy frame. He’d never tire hearing it, not when it was just beneath his ear.

“Hmm.” He murmured, and squeezed her tighter.

“Dreams?” A gentle finger followed the line of his jaw.

“It was nothing. Go back to sleep.”

She wiggled in his arms to roll over to face him. He stared down at her, bare under the blankets and drenched in golden firelight. The slope of her shoulder was browned and freckled from daily swimming. Now that she learned, she never wanted to stop. He rested his lips on her skin to taste the sunlight. 

“Did I wake you?” Ben murmured into her precious skin. 

“A bit,” she said, stroking his hair back from his temple. They were still learning how to not share too much through their bond in such close proximity. It was all new. “And you’re so kriffing hot.”

He chuckled. “I’ll work on cooling myself.”

“It must be those big feet of yours. You’re like a Wookie.”

A hand reached around to her bottom to give it a spank and a squeeze. “I think your ass contributes plenty of heat to the equation.”

She huffed, but her voice couldn’t hide the smile. “Watch your mouth, Solo.”

“Oh, I will.” Ben kissed the round of her shoulder and scraped a small bite with his teeth. “I’m going to watch it go here.” He dragged his lips across to her collarbone. 

She sighed. 

“And here.” A tender kiss between her breasts. Her chest rose to meet his lips. “And here.” Another kiss above a rosy, pink peak. She arched her back to encourage him on.

Her legs and hips shifted, and Ben took the invitation to reposition between them.

“Are you too hot, my love?” he asked between kisses, taking a creamy, soft breast in his mouth.

“No,” Rey replied breathlessly.

His tongue circled before he blew cool air to watch her body rouse for him. “May I continue?”

“ _ Kriff.  _ Yes, yes.”

Her fingers ruffled his hair as he shifted lower. He had been meaning to ask her to cut it for him. Ben was glad he hadn’t when she twisted and yanked his locks in time with his tongue stroking between her legs.

When he crawled back up her body, she smiled at him with sparkling and sated eyes, full of wonder and love. That was reward enough, to see himself in those eyes. She led him into her soft, welcoming body with a sweet smile, and he leaned over her on elbows to brush her perfect cheekbone with his thumb. 

Every time still felt like the miracle of the first. Of jagged pieces being made smooth, of magnets drawn together by the force. Making something new and balanced, together.

He kissed her gently and drew back. He needed to see her. The way her eyelids fluttered when she lifted her jaw, the dart of a pink tongue wetting a lip, the slight quiver of a smile with each stuttering breath.

What Rey saw when she looked up at him with those eyes like mirrors, he was still too afraid to ask yet. Perhaps he always would be. Ben was learning to live with that fear, amongst all the other things he was learning to accept about himself.

As long as she kept looking.

  
  
  



	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapters will be non-linear vignettes of their life together post-TRoS in a canon-divergent timeline where Rey force-healed Ben back to life and they escaped together.
> 
> You know, how it should've ended. :D

It was all Rey could do some days to stop herself from staring at Ben. 

She’d lose herself looking at him and soaking in his proportions up close. So many details she’d never had time before to discover. Now, they had time. Rey collected the moments like the shells from the beach that she placed on the windowsill of the cabin. 

By the hearth, as Ben sat with a book in his lap and golden flames danced across his cheeks. He read with stern look of concentration that could be mistaken for fury if you didn’t know him better. Or when he walked ahead of her on the beach to head home at sunset. His slightly-pigeon toed gait with steps so heavy it was as if his boots were made of lead. She’d slow just to watch him move, smiling and waiting for the moment he’d stop and look back for her. Ben always looked back.

When he changed shirts in the morning, she’d roll over to watch the wide plane of his back. Muscles shifted and stretched and she’d track the healing of the scars and bruises that faded more each day. She wanted to help him, but he wouldn’t hear of it. Said her being near him was help enough.

Ben didn’t notice her staring habit, or at least was polite enough to not say anything when he caught her in the act. He’d just momentarily freeze with wide and slightly wounded eyes before reading her expression. Then his dark brows would arch up as his smile warmed. His eyes sparkled as if they shared secret. Rey supposed they did. 

No one else could ever know her like Ben did, and vice-versa. Their rare bond could not be broken– _ not even in death, not even beyond death– _ a true dyad in the force. Neither fully knew what that meant yet, but she was happy they’d discover the answers together.

Looking at him, sometimes a lump formed in her throat and strange tears pricked at her eyes. A child of the desert knows very well you don’t waste water on something as silly as happiness. Yet it wasn’t joy alone, there was an echo of pain.  _ The memory of a loss, of Ben with closed eyes lying among rubble with his face as ashen as a fresh moon, the feel of the electricity coursing through her body as she willed his to wake.  _ Staring at his beauty was a reminder of what almost came to be, the vast joy being chased by a shadow of despair.

Ben was here with her, but he almost wasn’t. 

They were together now, but were almost lost. 

The terror of the near-miss, the almost-was, clutched at her throat.

Ben felt it, too. When he caught her staring with wet eyes, he’d move so quickly to reach for her that her heart would skip. Hands wrapped around his neck to feel him, solid and real, and he nearly crushed her to his chest as he caged her in tightly. It was what she wanted, to feel the strength of his love on her own body, the eternal promise of their bond against her own skin.

Rey would stare, because her eyes wouldn’t lie to her. 

Ben Solo was alive. He was hers. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading and your kind comments!
> 
> I hope you find some catharsis and healing through these stories, just as they are. <3
> 
> I appreciate you!

His hair was getting too long.

It draped over his eyes now. He huffed out an irritated blast of air to clear his forehead and scratched it back from his face. The unfamiliar feel of hair tickling his newly-bared nape was unsettling. There was no high-collared uniform or cowl to protect his skin, no mask to restrain it and hide behind. His wild, dark waves grew longer each day. They dried in the wind on their walk back from the beach, twisting into knots.

It was simple. Rey would have to cut it for him. There was no one else. Still, Ben hesitated to ask her for it.

For her part, Rey didn’t mind his hair long. In fact, she seemed to prefer it. 

They were lying in bed, him caging her in with his arms and her smiling up at him, the first time she reached to thread her fingers into it. He flinched on instinct. Her smile dropped, not from hurt, but swallowed by the look of alertness. The same concentrated focus she got when landing the Falcon in a tricky maneuver. Like solving a puzzle that required full attention.

Her hand didn’t pull away, though, it just held in space. Frozen. Giving him a moment to decide if he wanted to say something to her or not. He couldn’t put into words the crushing wave of gratitude he felt for that– for her not taking personally what was so clearly his issue. Of her recognizing the thing that was twisting inside him and not being hurt by his own pain.

Because her loving touch woke in him a ghost. The memory of another warm body behind his in bed, soft and comforting when he was small and scared. Of whispered bedtime stories and hummed lullabies. Of absentminded fingers braiding patterns from a dead world against his scalp while telling wistful childhood stories. Young Ben would close his eyes and melt into the feel of her hands in his hair as the tight clench of loneliness in his chest eased under her careful fingers. Rey’s touch was an echo of another’s. 

Once Ben had fled to the cold embrace of the First Order, he’d never let another touch his hair and would kill for less. A service droid cut it once a month while he scrolled through a datapad to distract himself. Stubbornly suppressing the simmering tension and the feel of anything other than metallic prickles pulling and scraping.

It was strange how the smallest things could cut the deepest. How a tender touch could hurt.

Rey would understand if he told her. But Ben wasn’t ready for that yet, still finding their balance together. Their rhythm. So he kissed her palm and placed it back on his cheek to lean into her touch.

Soon.

__________

He waited until it couldn’t be ignored anymore. His damn hair was too long. Ben had to deal with it.

They were back from their swim and had already washed off the salt and sand under the recycled-water shower out back. Newly-fresh and clean, scrubbed pink and gleaming, they went in the cabin to make dinner.

Ben squeezed out the extra water from his locks into a twisted towel and wrapped it around his bare shoulders. In nothing but loose pants, he watched Rey work– setting a pot of water to boil over the fire for makka tea, cutting the carrots and root vegetables for soup.

Quiet domesticity. The details of life and living. No drama, no stakes higher than going hungry or not. Watching her bend and move by the fire, humming to herself, eyes on her task because she trusted him enough to take her eyes off him. It was a gift, this boredom and simplicity, and he didn’t take it for granted. 

Not a single moment, not a single day.

It was as good of a time as any, he supposed.

“I have a favor to ask,” he started, his bare feet quiet as he approached. Ben slowed as her eyes rose to meet his over the cutting board. He never asked Rey for favors. He’d never ask her for anything– she’d given him far too much already and it would take lifetimes to pay it all back. 

It was unusual enough that she raised her eyebrows while waiting.

Ben cleared his throat. “Will you cut my hair?” 

There was a small release of her shoulders, like she was expecting something far worse and had prepared for it. Relief made her smile. Then a bit of trepidation.

“I’ve never cut anyone’s hair before,” she said. “Only mine.”

“Well how do you cut yours?”

She wore her hair lose now, sometimes pulled half-up and away from her face when training. Rey tugged her mostly-wet hair over her shoulder, holding the ends, and said, “snip snip” as she mimed scissors with her fingers. “Nothing as fancy as yours.”

The corner of his mouth quirked up. “You think my hair is  _ fancy? _ ”

“Fancier than anything on Jakku,” she countered gently.

“It doesn’t matter at all what it looks like. It’s just hair.”

Rey put a hand on her hip, as if he had personally affronted her. “I like your hair very much, Ben! And I don’t wish to be the one who ruins it.”

“You could never ruin anything, Love,” he said, the endearment slipping itself in at the end. 

It seemed to have an effect when she sighed. Her smile flickered back on.

Bullish as he was, he couldn’t help adding a threat. “If you don’t, I’ll just shave it all off.”

She narrowed her eyes and voice to deep rasp. “ _ You wouldn’t dare.” _

He shrugged as his grin widened. She was still so easy to provoke that he feared he’d never tire of it. His beautiful, beloved adversary. “Makes no difference to me. I don’t have to look at myself.”

Rey’s eyes sparkled, as much from the challenge as her words. “If you do, I’ll make a point of kissing and tugging your ears every moment I can.”

He couldn’t suppress a chuckle at that. “Oh, I forgot about them. Fine, hair it is.”

Seated on a bench before the fire, he willed himself to relax as her warm and steady fingers combed through his hair.

He closed his eyes and his hands reached out to find her hips. He held steady, marking her in space even when he couldn’t see her. It made his heartbeat slow down again.

“Okay, here I go,” she said. He imagined she was biting a lip to focus, as she did in deep concentration. He didn’t dare look up and confirm, the temptation to distract her from her and haul her to bed would be too great.

“Maybe you can cut mine next.”

“I like your hair long,” he muttered, thumbs tracing slow arcs around her hip bones. Steadying her and himself with the touch.

“Hypocrite– I like yours long, too.” She pinched his locks between fingers and trimmed off the ends. “I’ve been thinking I want something new. Maybe shorter, only to my chin.”

He imagined that behind his closed lids. No more buns then, no more returning to the old habits of old ways. Trimming it and letting it all fall away and making something new just for the two of them.

Yes, Ben would like to help her cut her hair. 

He’d like that very much.

**Author's Note:**

> Star Wars characters are property of The Walt Disney Company.  
> Original story and characters are copyright © 2019 by NewerConstellations. All rights reserved.
> 
> This work is intended for personal use by Ao3 users while posted. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without prior written permission of author, except in the cases of certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. Please do not transmit downloads beyond personal use.
> 
> For permission requests, write to newerconstellations@gmail.com.


End file.
